I’ve been single longer than I have ever been in a relationship or married. I’ve retained some of my closest friends for close to 15 and 20 years. I’ve known my divorce attorney for 8 years (longer than any of my romantic relationships). In the last couple of years I have done some soul searching, I have fell in love, I have altered and course corrected my life. I’m Dallas Single Mom, supposedly the expert on being single and dating in Dallas. Yet with all of my friends, successes and fulfilling family life there is still a lot of darkness that I seldom talk about or discuss. In my opinion, my darkness serves no purpose except to teach myself my own life lessons. We all go through challenges and with every Tinder swipe left or right, it almost feels like meeting someone I can share my intimate life adventures with is far from grasp.
Traveling to North Carolina
In some ways I am Nick Dalton. Who is Nick Dalton?
Nick Dalton is the main character in Carson Gage’s book, “Soul Sessions” When I was given the opportunity to read this book for posting on the blog I had thought it was one of those inspirational non-fiction and self-help books. Easy to read as well as easy to put down and forget. So I had a few hours on a plane ride to visit with my son in Charlotte, NC and I was intrigued after the first few chapters. Once I settled in at the house I rented that I could cuddle under the goose down comforter in my bedroom and eerily consume every word until the last one. Soul Sessions was more than just a fictionally veiled self-help book. This book came into my life at the right time of my life.
Set in modern day Chicago, Nick Dalton is a troubled yet highly successful investment banker with a gorgeous girlfriend and a lot of money to burn. Despite all his success, Nick falls into a deep depression after missing his flight that ended up crashing. Just as it looks as though Nick’s life might end in suicide, enter Katrina DuMont, a gifted psychologist who is an expert in both traditional and new age methods of treatment for depression. Together, using past-life regression techniques, they explore several of Nick’s prior incarnations, where he unwittingly discovers a beautiful woman who repeatedly appears as his lover and soul mate. To potentially reawaken his epic love affair, Nick is compelled to search for her in this lifetime. Thus begins an astonishing story of love and intrigue, where Nick stumbles across inconceivable answers to some of life’s greatest mysteries … and once again finds the course of his life altered.
Is our destiny pre-determined and how can we find our life’s purpose?
Throughout my adult years I have always been fascinated with our life’s purpose. It has been a slow and steady process to discipline myself to even begin this journey of self-discovery because I have been “youthfully afraid” and unwilling to step forward due to fears unrealized. In the last two years I can personally feel myself stepping out of my own chrysalis and it is like disrobing from a heavy dark coat that overshadows the sunshine.
The lake in the back of the home I rented where I read the entire book in half a day
There’s a part of this book where Nick talks about a moment in his past where he speaks to a young college classmate about finding your life’s calling. In the book Dalton describes, “there are three types of work . . . a job, career and a calling.” I can’t help but think of how all of the events both good and bad have culminated to my own calling. I started Dallas Single Mom because a psychic told me to. It was 2010 and I had just signed up to write for Examiner.com. I was a paid writer. I was paid pennies but I was paid. The psychic specifically said that I should create a website and gave me the name of another website to check out how. The rest is history. Even my ex-husband not paying child support has helped me to where I am today with my freelance career. If he had not tried so hard to keep me down financially so that I’d give up taking care of my daughter, I would have never pushed as hard as I have. I had never given up taking care of her and never will. He has continued to NEED me to take care of her because he is subconsciously aware that I am the best person for that job. So now I have the blog, multiple blogs, affiliate sites, teaching at UT Arlington, consulting gigs, speaking positions and more. Even with his sabotage of fake emails trying to discredit me he has eternally failed because I have been so strong in purpose. That’s why I can readily identify with the themes in Soul Sessions.
If our life is pre-determined how can we also have free will?
As Nick Dalton explores his past lives under regression therapy we are introduced to the concept of “In-between” lives or that period between our lifetimes. This period is where we have spirit guides and soul groups that help us review the life we just had relative to the initial life plan and the karmic lessons learned. As Nick reviews his future life in the book he asks his spirit guide about whether his current life plan as Nick has put him on the right path. This part gets very interesting because his spirit guide Sacha tells him he missed key destiny points that would have put him back on track. That’s how the book talks about pre-determined life plans in order to achieve spiritual lesson goals. In our lives we have free will and the basis of the decisions we make comes from intuition and reasoning. In Nick’s life he may have gone onto a stronger life path had he relied more on his gut feelings and instinct. This is a lesson I can easily identify with because I often don’t trust my own instincts. Even when I see the red flags when it comes to dating, I want to believe so hard that I go against my better judgment sometimes. These have been important but hard lessons to learn.
Do you believe in soul mates?
I used to not believe in soul mates? In fact I don’t believe all lives are meant for a relationship lifetime. The reason why I believe this is because I’m very much into astrology and I follow my north node. I have a North Node in the sign of Virgo. A North Node is that part of your chart that helps you find your life’s purpose. The North Node represents the experiences we must have to grow spiritually while the South Node represents those experiences that come naturally to us because we’ve learned those lessons in past lives. Since I am a north node Virgo then I focus on those things ruled by Virgo. Now do I believe I met people that were part of my “karmic plan.” Many significant people in my life have changed the course of my life in ways that I did not understand at the time. In hindsight I see the dramatic karmic lessons at play. Were they my soul mates? Most likely not but they came and went in my life for a reason. My ex-husband probably gave me the biggest karmic gift to date by making me emotionally stronger than I could ever imagine and setting me up for my calling. Now do I believe in soul mates? Yes I believe in soul mates. Yet they aren’t all romantic in nature and some are learning their own karmic lessons in this lifetime. I’ve met a few people in my life who have helped me on that journey. I believe I have also been close to meeting people who I thought was my soul mate. One was named John. I thought he was my soul mate and he thought I was his. Rather than going into the details it’s safe to say that once the time came for us to part, it was quite apparent the karmic lesson was done. It has taken me 5 months to realize this. I think about him often and we can email in a quiet way. I don’t know if he even thinks about me but I felt a certain sense of warmth and calmness that parting was the right thing to do. It was not the right time.
Ducks at the lake yesterday
Who should buy this book?
You don’t have to be into astrology or psychics to enjoy Soul Sessions. It’s a fictional story that touches upon many theories related to soul mates and reincarnation. I personally found this book to enter into my life at a divine moment for me which is why I’m so excited to talk about it. If you enjoy a good story about overcoming odds or depression and coming back to life you will love this book. If you like a good love story you will like this book and if you believe in hope you will definitely love this book.
About the Author: Carson Gage has been interested in the mysteries of life and death since the age of seven, when he survived being run over by a speeding car. This experience led him on a journey of discovery for answers to some of life’s biggest questions.
I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.